200 Housing Agencies Regularly Bounced Checks

Subject: 200 Housing Agencies Regularly Bounced Checks Fri Jun 26, 2009 3:21 am

The Government Accountability Office published a June report that found 200 federal housing agencies were regularly writing bad checks of $25,000 or more between 2002 and 2006.

Nearly three-quarters of them had passed a test monitoring their fiscal well-being, but the test isn't designed to determine if housing agencies are mismanaging their funds or using them inappropriately, the GAO said..

The report urges the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to overhaul its oversight mechanisms to better identify at-risk housing agencies.

"Our analysis . . . found that 200 housing agencies had written checks that exceeded the funds available in their bank accounts (bank overdrafts) by $25,000 or more,” the report said, “indicating a potential that these housing agencies could have serious cash and financial management problems and could be prone to increased risk of fraudulent use of funds.”

The GAO found that nearly 75 percent of those agencies that had written bounced checks had passed HUD’s benchmark for financial health, the Public Housing Assessment System (PHAS). Additionally, some of the agencies were given no PHAS score at all.

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=49593

200 Housing Agencies Regularly Bounced Checks

200 Housing Agencies Regularly Bounced Checks

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